Heart to Killer
by Samurai101
Summary: In a blood smeared alley the killer promises the boy and the child that he will protect them from death.::Bakumatsu setting::


**A/N: Most fans give Kenshin three alternate personalities besides the Kenshin one. They are: Shinta, Battousai, and Rurouni/the wanderer. This fic focuses on Shinta and Battousai. This is not his first kill. Please enjoy and review.**

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Shinta clapped both hands over his mouth and screamed. His childish voice rose to a frantic soprano note as his eyes widened in terror. The amethyst eyes flickered from the blood fanned across the wall and pooled in the street to the body mutilated beyond recognition with a few quick strokes of a well loved blade. The screams continued as the child stumbled away from the scene of the filth and death. 

"Killed! Killed!" The child shrieked. "You killed him!" The child screamed a fell back against the unsoiled wall sobbing and howling the act. "He's dead!"

"Shut up!" Battousai growled and swung his sword around to point at Shinta. "We killed him"

"NO! YOU KILLED HIM! YOU! YOU! YOU!" Shinta screamed into his tiny hands that dripped with tears and now mucus from his running nose. He screamed wordlessly and slammed his frail body against the clean wall as he tried to get away from the spreading blood.

Battousai growled, and stalked forward towards the child. Shinta screamed louder his accusation as the blood covered man neared and grabbed him with a bloody hand. "Shut up! WE killed him, understand? We-us-all of us"

"NO! NO!" Shinta thrashed in the man's blood slick hold. "That's a lie"

Battousai growled, and slammed the screaming child into the wall with a vicious crack. Battousai winced as Shinta wailed and choked on tears and possibly blood. Shinta gasped for air and stared past the bloody man holding him to the corpse. He whimpered and tried to pull away from the crushing hand knotted in his thin gi. He could feel the blood slipping onto him through the thin cloth.

Battousai was literally dripping in blood, and as the killer leaned over the child it dripped onto him. The child screamed and hunched over as much as Battousai's grip would let him to throw-up.

Blood! Shinta couldn't stand it. He hated blood, killing, and hurting. He hated it all, and now it was all before him so fresh he could taste it in the air and smell it on his skin, even though he hadn't done it. The smell and taste were coating his throat, and now there was blood on him. Shinta hated blood more than anything.

Blood! Battousai couldn't live without it. An existence without blood, killing, and hurt was not an existence at all. Those were the things he was, at the very core of his being, and he could be nothing else. He was now covered in it. He had blood in his mouth, dripping from his hands, hair, and face. His hands still tingled with the feeling of a death brought by his own power, and he felt alive. He enjoyed the act, but the blood was the real reason to kill someone.

"We've both done it," Battousai hissed in Shinta's face as the child sobbed and tried to scream out his protests that he hadn't done it. Battousai clamped a blood covered hand over the child's mouth, and he saw Shinta go white. The child's eyes almost rolled back into his head, and his limbs began to shake. Battousai could feel the boy readying to retch as the taste and feel of blood registered in his mouth. Battousai grimaced and, using his hold on the boy's face, threw him down.

Shinta gasped and retched as he hit the ground. He rolled to his hands and knees, and retched again. He looked at Battousai with huge eyes that were now set in a blood smeared face. The blood made him look like a victim instead of what he was. Tears still poured down his cheeks.

"We've both done it, after all, we're the same, you and I," Battousai smiled. "We're the very same, and you know it. Isn't that right, Kenshin-kun"

The third person standing by the corpse, unnoticed and unwanted until now, looked at them both. "Are we really?" He asked in a pale voice that matched his pale face. Battousai growled, and advanced on the pale Kenshin with a snarl that sounded purely animal.

"Oh, yes, we are," Battousai grabbed Kenshin with a bloody hand, and looked into the boy's violet eyes with his own cat amber eyes. "We are you and don't argue. Poor Shinta-chan is already very, very confused"

"I don't like blood," Kenshin whispered, looking down at the corpse. Battousai scoffed, and turned again to Shinta, who was hunched on the ground still, shivering and trying not to see the blood or corpse. Battousai advance on child, and the child flinched away.

"NO! Hitokiri don't touch Shinta!" Shinta flung himself away and cracked his head against the wall again. Battousai growled, and clutched his own head for a moment as the sensation of pain washed over him.  
Battousai reached down and dragged Shinta to his feet with both bloody hands. Shinta screamed again, but he didn't fight the hands that held him off the ground or turn his eyes from the ones that glared at him through blood encrusted bangs.

"You are weak!" Battousai yelled at Shinta. "You are going to get us killed. We'll be dead"

"No! You are the hitokiri!" Shinta wailed in the desperate soprano notes of a child past terror.

"Yes! Yes, we kill people! We are people cutters! We can't be weak and be afraid of blood! You are going to kill us! We won't live anymore if we get killed! DO YOU WANT TO DIE"

"N-no," Shina whimpered. "Shinta wants to live"

Battousai grinned sharply at the child. "That is good. Shinta-chan, to live we must kill and be strong. We can't be weak. You need to go away and hide, and let me kill people in peace. This is how we will stay living, Shinta. This is the only way for us to live now. You must go hide now"

Shinta sobbed and paled more at the sight of the blood before him and the oceans of blood he saw in his mind's eye. "Sh-shinta wants-wants to live. Shinta is scared to not live." The child whispered in a tear and fear choked voice. "Shinta is scared"

"If you're afraid than you should hide. I'll keep us all living. I promise." Battousai dropped Shinta onto the ground, and looked down at the blood smeared child. "Go." The child hesitated, and looked at the blood all over the ground and opposite wall. He knew he was condemning the world to be washed in blood by leaving Battousai free to do what he wanted.

"NOW!" Battousai shouted. Shinta sobbed, wailed once more, and then he went tearing to the end of the street. His small feet striking the ground in a frenzied, uneven tempo that carried him quickly out of sight and mind.  
Battousai turned around and smiled as he licked the blood off his lips. He stepped towards the silent Kenshin, and picked the boy's katana up off the ground. "They are coming. You should be prepared."

Kenshin looked at Battousai, and raised a shaking hand to touch Battousai's blood encrusted bangs. "I don't want to kill people"

Battousai gripped Kenshin's shaking hand in a crushing hand, and smiled grimly. "I will kill them all if you won't. If you don't want to see then close your eyes, Kenshin-kun." Kenshin stared at the bloody man with eyes almost as frightened as Shinta's had been, and slowly closed his eyes.

The men rounded the corner and were greeted by a golden glance from a blood covered man-no, a boy he was. The blood covered boy stepped past them, sheathing his already clean katana, and discretely tasting the blood on his fingers.


End file.
